YouTube Apologizes For Tweeting Somebody Else's Video (inc.com)

YouTube's controversial year-end "Rewind" video has become "the most-loathed video in the entire history of YouTube," reports Inc., adding that with 14 million down votes, it now "might just be the most-hated video anybody ever posted anywhere."

"But then came Christmas Day, and YouTube apparently managed to top its own blunder." How? By uploading a promo video wishing viewers a Merry Christmas on Twitter. The problem: YouTube allegedly didn't own the video. Instead, it copied a YouTube user's video and reposted it as its own, without so much as offering credit....The only real difference between the version of video that YouTuber Lily Hevesh created and uploaded to YouTube, and the one that YouTube reportedly passed off as its own work in a post on Twitter is that YouTube's version on Twitter skipped the opening 20 seconds. That would be the part in which Hevesh, who describes herself as a "domino artist," shared her logo and a short clip of herself setting up the dominoes.

Hevesh caught what YouTube had apparently done about 14 hours after the post, and tweeted a response: "Very glad to see that my Christmas domino e-card is getting good use. However, I'm a bit disappointed that YouTube would take my video and re-upload it with absolutely no credit. People rip off my work everyday and it's honestly saddening to see this happen by YouTube itself...." Even if money weren't involved, YouTube's own terms of service and copyright page seem to ban exactly what it looks like was done here. It's a mess.

In the end, YouTube owned up to its mistake -- well, partway anyway. It tweeted a follow-up on the day after Christmas, acknowledging that they "forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video!" and linking to Hevesh's YouTube page.
The Verge points out that YouTube "does own a limited license to people's videos, so legally, the company can take Hevesh's content and upload it to its Twitter account. The problem is ethical....

"Reuploading video while stripping credit is a practice that YouTube explicitly condemns. YouTube's community guidelines and policy page specifically states that creators should only 'upload videos that you made or that you're authorized to use.'"

Comments

Re:Naw

[Anonymous Coward]

>I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure if she has a lawyer she can get paid here.

Nope.
https://www.youtube.com/t/terms

C. For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.

People that use these services like YouTube or Facebook seem to forget that any content of theirs, whether their own produced vids or posted family photos, are no longer exclusively their own property anymore. Under YouTube's terms, it had a perfect right to modify that woman's video and display it without crediting her. Not very ethical, but legal.

Re:Naw

[sjames]

This. A license allows you to use it, but it doesn't allow you to remove the creator's name from it.

Pretty sure that's a copyright violation

[Solandri]

The Verge points out that YouTube "does own a limited license to people's videos, so legally, the company can take Hevesh's content and upload it to its Twitter account.

I'm pretty sure their license allows them to distribute people's videos (necessary for YouTube to function). It does not allow them to edit then redistribute the edited video. That's a copyright violation. Hevesh should be able to sue them for up to $150,000, more if she filed a copy of the video with the U.S. Copyright Office.

The silly thing is that YouTube's sharing link has a tool to allow you to add a start time to a video link (start the video x seconds in). They only had to tweet her original video with the start time set at 20 seconds to skip her intro. The ease with which you can do that and the fact that they didn't would seem to put this violation in the class of willfull and malicious infringement. Someone at YouTube knew exactly what they were doing by manually editing out the first 20 seconds of her video. Which is why the full $150,000 fine could be in play.

Re:Pretty sure that's a copyright violation

[MobyDisk]

This is not neglect. It is not just that they didn't credit them. They went out of their way to remove the credit. If they had linked to the video would have credited them implicitly. Linking to the point 20-seconds into the video would have been rude, but would have credited them indirectly since it still leads to their channel. No, someone intentionally chopped the first 20 seconds off the video and uploaded that modified video. That's not neglect, that's a willful act.

Re: Will she get paid by YT?

[qzzpjs]

They can't claim it was a mistake if they purposely edited out her credit domino sequence from the front of the video.

Actually they have a right to change

[aepervius]

Look at their TOS : "royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's" emphasis mine. You upload it, they can pretty much do everything and anything with it.

Re:Naw

[iive]

By Copyright law.

The only thing that Youtube/Google cannot do is claim that this is their own video. By removing the authors logo and all identifying information, they have done just that.

Re: So she got ad revenue, right?

[astrofurter]

As other respondents have pointed out with needless vulgarity, YouTube's one-sided "terms of service" almost certainly give them the legal right to use her content without compensation. The problem here is that _all_ "terms of service" documents essentially say the user has no rights - fuck you, prole, that's why.

This practice is called "lawful fraud". It occurs wherever one party is unilaterally allowed to define the terms of commerce. What's needed is legislation akin to the Uniform Commercial Code (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code) to set standard, fair business practices for online services.

Re:Naw

[N_Piper]

They are called "Moral Rights" Attribution or non-attribution are Moral Rights protected under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works to which the United States is a Signatory.
Youtube may have been within their rights to edit and repost the video but in no way were they ever allowed, because importantly they never asked to be allowed, to disassociate it from it's creator.